By Michael Fisch
law briefs
“Curls. ’Fro. Straight. Braided. Wavy. Natural. Relaxed. Colored.” Women must grapple with the difficult decision of how to wear their hair in a professional setting, Suffolk Law Assistant Dean and Interim Associate Dean of Students Cherina D. Wright, JD/MBA ’17, and attorney Stesha A. Emmanuel write in their essay “Hair I Am,” published in the Boston Bar Journal in June. “In particular, women of color,” they write, “are faced with the age-old question—how should I style my hair to conform to the image of [fill in the blank].”
In their case, the blank can be filled in with “lawyers.” Their piece, appearing in a special edition of the journal devoted to diversity, equity, and inclusion, argues that the legal community “should refrain from telling law students and young attorneys how to ‘tame their hair’ or ‘be more conservative in their hairstyle.’” Wright and Emmanuel, a partner at McCarter & English, lay out their support for the Creating a Respectful and Open World for Natural Hair (CROWN) Act, signed into law by Massachusetts Governor Charlie Baker on July 26.
The law prohibits discrimination against employees and students based on their natural hairstyle and spurs companies and school districts to update their equal employment opportunity and nondiscrimination policies. As the authors write, the law in Massachusetts was inspired by two Black teenage girls who faced detention and suspension from sports for wearing braids while attending Mystic Valley Regional Charter School in 2017. Massachusetts was the 18th state to pass such a law.
The CROWN Act “will help curtail and prevent discrimination on the bases of immutable characteristics,” Wright and Emmanuel say, a boon for “many Black and Brown women [who] are told to wear their hair slicked back in a bun to avoid being distracting.” For the law to succeed, they add, “we must eliminate our expectations for everyone to look the same.”
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winter 2023
Photograph by Michael J. Clarke
